Leachability of ra-226 from uranium mill tailings consolidated with naturally occurring materials and/or cement

Reduction of the fraction of Ra-226 leached from U mill tailings by one or two orders of magnitude was found possible by solidifying the mill tailings with cement and cement plus peat or clay. For the period of the leaching experiments (approximately 100 days) the leaching behavior of the solidified mill tailings could be described by an empirical equation of the form Q = αt ^α, where Q = fraction of activity leached, normalized with respect to the surface: volume ratio of the tailings, t = time, and α and α are constants. The most effective consolidation mixture investigated was a 70:30 tailings to consolidating mixture comprised of cement, peat and clay in the ratio of 50:30:20.